A discussion on 7 heroes

Oh, but that's something even I would admit in the current game.
I would however even state that a lot of people would rather use heroes than guild/alliance members.
7 heroes will hurt teaming, because it would be the single best choice for every player. (continued below quote)

Oh yes, there is one major difference.
Time.
Why on earth would I want to wait for 1 hour to get a full human team when I can get about the same quality with heroes?
This is what all solo-players seem to forget when they argue about how 7 heroes will not break the game.
They are used to the 5-minutes teaming time (load heroes and templates, go).
They are not used to go to Deep with an part alliance team (forming time about half an hour) and having trouble filling the lasts spots (again, half an hour) only to have some nutcase f-up while rearranging the team.
Vanquish? That would mean waiting for 20-60 mins because someone who wants to join is in the middle of something.
With the possibility that someone says 'changed my mind, go alone'.

Add 7 heroes to this and people would only team up because they want feel like it. And most of the time, titles and personal goals are in the way of that 'I feel like it'.
Currently there is one huge reward for teaming up with an other human.
You get the human + 3 heroes. Here two players benefit, not one.
As I already argued, when a 1/7 team adds an extra human to form a 2/6 team, the value of that extra human is minimal.
You gain some human advantage, but lose on teaming-time and synergy (with a good hero team build).
The best example of this was the 3/5 GvG Discord team.
The humans were there to enable the heroes to do their jobs (2x necro condition/hex spreader) and to take the role heroes can't play (N/Mo infuser).
Humans are needed because heroes can't execute alternative strategies when needed. I doubt humans could play this build as good as heroes, because you had to know if conditions were still met.

The same is true for a lot of other hero team builds.
Make sure the right conditions are met and heroes will act on it.
They are a lot faster than humans on 'sensing' when a certain condition is met, specially when attacking a group of enemies.

Introducing 7 heroes without rewarding human teams for the time it takes to for a team (or shorten that time) is going to kill a lot of the social aspect that A-net still wants.
I do like TabascoSauce's idea, but I don't think point 3 will solve the problems.

Just gonna throw my thoughts into the discussion.

Seven heroes would be insane. You could get a mad team of seven AI heroes that you can customise exactly the way you like. The Heroes diluted the multiplayer aspect of the game enough, but allowing seven to be added to a team would mean PUG's would no longer exist (to a degree). While I do hate PUG's, a lot of the fun of being a newbie comes with grouping with like-minded players who are just as eager to start a mission as you.

It's very hard to do so in the current game though, as most players will now rather take three heroes and four henchmen and only do multiplayer with friends or guildies.

As the_jos mentions, the social aspects of the game would be trampled on by a seven heroes system, like a Kournan Bowman trampled under Zhed's hoof.

It's the same drumbeat from the opposition over and over, and it really just comes down to this:

force people to team, force people to team, force people to team

I don't care about the social aspects of the game, I didn't buy the game to PUG, I bought it to play with friends and solo. If you want to force a game to be MP only, you'd better damn well advertise it that way from the beginning. Anet didn't. This game was designed to support solo, small group, AND PUG play. PUG's aren't any more important than those other two styles of play, and those of you that enjoy them have no business trying to force everyone else to play your way.

I don't think there can be any "awesome" solution for this since no one has any idea how it will play out. It may cause more ghosttowns, it may do just the opposite. It may greatly kill pugs, it may actually encourage people to play together. How much do we know? Not a whole lot, and this is probably the only reason ANet probably doesn't want to do this: No idea of what direction this'll take. Too hard to tell if it'll help or hurt.

But I really do like Tobasco's third idea. I'd say double the drop rate of everything (even triple) and provide 100% droprate on Greens - with a human party. I don't care about drops/gold when I'm h/h'ing, I just want to play.

Screw soloers AND people that play with small groups of friends/guildies for loot. Wow, that's... great.

You guys realize you're trying to piss all over the bulk of the player base at this point, right? I mean, screw the soloers AND the small group players and see how many copies of GW2 sell.

Oh and incidentally:

Then those people are idiots, frankly. Competent humans are better than heroes, period.

PUG < 1 competent player with H/H < 1 competent player with 7 heroes < 2 competent players with 6 heroes << 8 competent players

If there were enough friendly, competent people playing the game, social players would never play any other way. People like me, who can't fathom the appeal of playing with strangers, would still stick to small group and soloing. Heroes have nothing to do with the lack of PUG and large group play, people do.

You can force people to group, you can't force them to like it and, ultimately, you're just driving people away from the game.

Whoa - this is not a nerf, Vin. This is a carrot. If you play solo or H/H, then your situation does not change. This is encouragement to play in human groups for the purposes of getting loot and such.

Hehe, insert joke here about how GW players are so used to the stick that when a carrot idea comes along, they automatically get suspicious. J/K

Thanks!
TabascoSauce

Wow, you are so intent in your way of thinking that you have the inability to understand anyone else's point of view, to the point of taking other people's arguments and bending them to the extreme just to make them support your point. I'm simply flabbergasted.

Please, please, please reread my posts on this issue. Again, you are very much attempting to put words in my mouth and justifying that "it's just a logical extrapolation of your position." Maybe logical to you in the sense that you are trying to twist it to prove your point, but not logical in the common sense of the word.

You don't understand...with someone who is as intent as Vin to prove his point, it's not simply a nerf - it would be an active threat to everyone, warning them not to play solo or "else". Maybe this would also "force" people to play in PuGs, eh, even though they all hate it?

I think the game is fine the way it is right now. Just leave it be. If you have enjoyed GW now, there is no point in trying to piss off another group of people with an update that some people dont want. Imagine more hate threads. lol. If you have played solo or have pugged before in GW and enjoyed playing, not alot of reasons to complain.

I think this is another reason why they are getting rid of H/H in GW2. In GW2 you can solo play everything with just your one character (from what i remember reading)

Anywho there are valid arguements in this thread, and everyone is entitled to their own opinion. This thread seems more preechy than anything right now. No one here is gonna break on the reasons why they think there should or should not be 7 heros. Its like 2 brick walls.

Bear in mind that I'm not saying that I'm demanding 7 heroes - it would just be a little more fun having to customize builds for a whole party of 8. I'm in here to see good reasons against and for, but as I've already stated I don't think *any* of us will know what will happen. Neither side has a whole lot of evidence.

Also note that GW2 won't need heroes, but you will have your own personal "sidekick", so to speak. All in all it sounds like the sequel will be scaled around party size. Sounds fun!

within the year AFTER the release of GW2 money says 7 heros for the win.....

Yet your drumbeat is essentially.

"its doesnt hurt anyone. its gonna be good for me. you dont have to do if you dont want to. Let me do what i want to do."

Sounds like a drug dealer/user friend of mine from back in high school (I'm being serious).

You are forcing people to solo.

With the option there, you can easily say that we don't have to do it. But thats a totally unrealistic expectation.

It's RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOing pandora's box.

Of course everyone is just gonna solo and do 7 heroes ALL the time. It's not even a matter of if you can, anyone who tries to group will be ridiculed by other players "Just use heroes noob".

It does change the gameplay. It changes the players. It changes the gaming environment. I think this is why Anet is very firm in their decision to not even DISCUSS this topic. Or read this thread. Maybe they don't want all their players turning into hermits. Maybe they actually want social interaction, meeting people and growth and development through other players and sharing knowledge.

It removes the need for other human players. Even if other human players would be better for more complex tactics, who cares, you can still solo. You could still beat it, and definitely better than the worse pugs.

You are only looking at it from a soloer's perspective. RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GO the puggers. They can pug if they want, let me solo. That's all i hear. It doesn't sound very justified, it just sounds very greedy and selfish and those arguments just aren't enough for any change.

What is broken. What needs to be fixed. Why.

Heroes are functioning ok (albeit with weak and buggy AI). Soloing is not hard with exception to areas whos level design exceed the capabilities of AI, meaning they weren't meant for AI. So what needs to be fixed?

Wanting to play with more builds, use more heroes (oh my god, they are going to waste if i dont use them!), and wanting to beat areas not designed to be soloed are bad reasons.

Ok im just going to reply to the points rather than the posters here because there is a lot to quote otherwise.

First of, it being used for farming. I honestly dont get this, someone said having heroes gives you a higher drop rate. Heroes take drops just like henchmen and just like players. You wouldnt get any more drops using heroes.

Another comment was again on heroes being overpowered. It was directed at ints so ill stick to that. Yes a hero can interrupt faster. However they will also go right ahead and waste an interrupt on that flare. They will then happily sit and watch MS be cast.

Heroes arent intelligent. Its as simple as that, they cant work out which skill is more important to int in each situation. A player knows exactly what they want to int.


Next up "It would force people to solo"

Not at all.

These people saying no to 7 heroes. Do you think they would go and use them? There will always be people to play with. Will it reduce the number of people to pug with? Most likely yes.

However those people would obviousely prefer to use 7 heroes, also there will still be people who want to pug. Besides with guilds and friends you should never have a problem anyways.


Heroes wont allow access to some of the higher end areas still.

Yes we know this, however we would be able to access more. HM for example (Yes it can be done with h/h but why should a solo player be forced to play with a warrior with charge and less than 8 skills on their bar? Henchmen dont even have the full 8 skills outside of GW:EN and we are meant to vanquish with them?).
Why can the solo player not be able to use the same teams as a team of players can?


Sorry to pick you out here but I felt this did need commenting on.

Its greedy and selfish to allow 2 different groups to play how they want?



And again, most people who want 7 heroes will already be using h/h. Its not like a whole wave of players will suddenly dissapear from pugs. Those people that enjoy pugs...will enjoy pugs just the same.

Yep, PUG's died ages ago - in fact in my opinion they died the first time the following words were written on a forum: "Camp the King". When Thunderhead Keep was easily henched it signaled the death of PUGs - at that point what was considered the most difficult mission in the game was henchable and people began looking for tactics other than the straightforward, in a sense they began to believe that hench were capable. The Golden age of PUG's (such as it was - even back then most people henched all but a few missions) was at an end. I can't say there will not be a single player that having 7 heroes would make a difference as to which way they went, but the change would be very small.

The other amusing thing is noticing how people arguing against it switch back and forth between Heroes being horrible and not worth playing with and being so much better than humans that no one would group again if you were to add more. The argument against them requires both things to be true.

Eh, it's not going to happen anytime soon if it ever does - Anet sees the game as a multi-player game that you can solo when you want. However most of the player base sees it as a solo game you can multi-player when you want. Anet wants to force the first case though if you can solo every part of it (and you must be able too if you see the game in the first case) people will choose to solo the whole thing - especially true since there is no other decent game to go play that is "solo but multi-player when you wish it". Three heroes per human is a compromise between the two groups and like any compromise it is a solution that makes both sides angry.

It would be more like:
PUG, 1+ 3H&4H, 2+6H, 3+5H, 1+7H, 8
Reason below:

Interrupt is not the only thing. It's only a small part.
The main issue is the ability of heroes to oversee the entire battlefield at once.
Where humans have to communicate a lot, heroes 'know' when something happens. And they also know the reaction of the other partymembers except the human players. Even when they have a called target, they switch to interrupt. Hardly ever with several heroes at once, it's one interrupt from the group.
However, it does not only work with interrupt, but also with conditions and hexes.
Chaining is easy for heroes and requires more coordination from humans.

This is why a good 7-hero team build would not only outperform a 2+6, but even a 3+5 team. This because not everyone knows what the heroes are doing. It's easier to execute more complex strategy with humans, but till now that was hardly ever a need for that.

Having read loads of messages on this subject I have changed my thoughts on the matter.

It may be a little radical but I would like the present 3 heroes reducing to 1 so you get 1 decent ai companion.

That would mean beginners would need 1 human companion to form the 4 person party and full parties ie 8 would have a minimum of 4 humans.

I think this would be good for the game.

Of course it would still be possible to form a party based on 1 human 1 hero and 6 henchies but I think you would struggle in some of the hardest areas.

I realise that trying to do this in the present game would be almost impossible and annoy those who have only known the game with heroes.

I don't understand your argument; are you saying that people only pug at the moment because the alternative sucks so much? Or, are you saying that, already, there is no social aspect to the game and that given any decent alternative people will use AI?

If your statement is true then pugging Giuldwars is already dead and no amount of prodding or poking the player base to pug is ever going to work.

In my opinion if the general level of players make comments like, 'Just use heroes noob.' then this is the best argument to implement full hero parties, because I don't want to socialize with idiots in RL, so why would I in game?

I often use heroes because most of the time nowadays I am not very talkative, pretty darn lazy and often just log out mid zone.

No. Its greedy and selfish to care only about the effects to your gameplay and no one elses. The argument isnt for 2 groups. Just 1 group. The soloer. You dont care about puggers or team players.

Hypothetically we can say allowing 7 heroes will have zero impact on other players.

But.

The mindset behind the argument never even accounted for any impact whatsoever. Now tell me thats not selfish.

Its based on "You can still group, you can do what you want, let me do my own thing."

The only reason it stands up to anything is because theres no empirecal(sp?) proof of a negative effect, nor is that negative effect solely based on the argument but on other factors as well.

Thats the only reason you can get away with saying that and pretend to care about the group player as well.

And it still boils down to "WANT". Want want want.

I want to play the way I want.

Thats great. I want to play with dual wielding hammers. Go back to my absurd list, and all of those are justifiable with wants.

And they are optional so they obviously have zero impact right?

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[quot=Verek]I don't understand your argument; are you saying that people only pug at the moment because the alternative sucks so much? Or, are you saying that, already, there is no social aspect to the game and that given any decent alternative people will use AI?

If your statement is true then pugging Giuldwars is already dead and no amount of prodding or poking the player base to pug is ever going to work.

In my opinion if the general level of players make comments like, 'Just use heroes noob.' then this is the best argument to implement full hero parties, because I don't want to socialize with idiots in RL, so why would I in game?[/quote]

Lets ignore the guild/friendlist player for a moment, since this their pool of party members is not based on strangers.

What im saying is this.
If you create a situation where a player has 2 choices to play the game.

1)7 Hero A.I.
2)Human P.U.G.s

The human player will most likely choose A.I., regardless of the quality of P.U.G.s.

This is especially true for casual players and new players who are still doing normal mode. H/H by itself is sufficient to beat all chapters of the game in normal mode. This creates a dependancy and a false image that human parties are not required at all. With lack of other players grouping to begin with, we continue to foster this illusion. When said players finally attempt higher end areas that were never designed for heroes/hench, they hit a brick wall and are unable to continue because of their lack of a social network which is built upon making friends through guild or pugging.

Lets look at the basic design.
Pugging is FORCED in Presear.
-Res sig quest
-North of the wall quests
-Searing quest

only after that can you use henchmen.

Quote myself FTW